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What We’re Really Asking Today: Could Another Holocaust Happen?
Illustrative: Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in London, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Susannah Ireland
In the West today, Jews and non-Jews speak anxiously about antisemitism. They debate incident statistics, survey results, attitudes toward Israel, and the distinction — supposedly crucial — between hostility to Jews and hostility to the Jewish State.
Enormous intellectual and financial energy is invested in measuring all of this. Yet these debates are largely beside the point. They are a proxy for a darker, unspoken question: could another Holocaust happen?
Statistics cannot answer that question. They were never designed to. Nor can opinion surveys, however sophisticated.
After more than a decade of empirical research into antisemitism in Western societies, I have reached a conclusion that will sound extreme but is, I believe, unavoidable: another catastrophe for the Jews is not only possible but increasingly probable.
This is not because of a sudden resurgence of old-fashioned hatred, but because Western societies are undergoing a profound spiritual and political transformation — and Jews are once again positioned as expendable.
The West has largely de-Christianised. In the vacuum left behind, it is constructing an alternative creed powerful enough to provide meaning, cohesion, and moral orientation to societies that are fragmented, diverse, and unsure of themselves. One of these creeds is pro-Palestinianism. It functions not merely as a political stance, but as a civic religion.
Civic religion is not a new concept. It refers to the shared rituals, symbols, and moral narratives that bind a nation together when traditional faith weakens. What is new is the content. Pro-Palestinianism offers a simple moral universe — victim and oppressor, innocence and guilt — at precisely the moment when Western societies feel incapable of enforcing older lines of belonging and authority.
This helps explain several developments that otherwise appear baffling.
First, the speed and intensity of the Gaza War protests. Within days of October 7, 2023 — before the war had meaningfully unfolded, before casualty figures could be invoked — hundreds of thousands were already mobilised across Britain and Western Europe. The slogans evolved over time, but the mobilisation was instant and relentless. This was not spontaneous outrage reacting to unfolding facts. It was something closer to ritualised response.
There is no need to invoke conspiracy. The machinery behind this mobilisation is visible and long-established. Its urgency does not stem from the Middle East, but from Europe itself. Western societies are grappling with the integration of large immigrant populations, many from Muslim-majority countries, for whom identification with the Palestinian cause is emotionally immediate. Aligning national moral narratives with this cause is a low-cost way to signal inclusion, empathy, and shared purpose. Call it appeasement if you like; the deeper issue is insecurity. Societies that lack confidence in their own values are reluctant to discipline, because discipline presupposes a shared line — and the line is gone.
Second, the sheer disproportionality of the Palestinian issue in European politics. Governments fall, ministers resign, parties form, and retailers boycott over Gaza, while conflicts with far greater strategic relevance — Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example — fade into the background. Palestinian flags saturate cultural spaces, from city streets to school fundraisers to the inner doors of pub toilets. Avoiding the messaging now requires active withdrawal from public life.
This is not noble universalism. It is selective moral inflation. Gaza has “won” the competition for Western attention because it serves an internal function. Casting Israel as a supreme criminal and Palestinians as ultimate victims fits the sensibilities of newly arrived populations whose integration is deemed essential, and progressive movements unhappy with what they deem racism and elite supremacy in their own nations. Pro-Palestinianism promises social harmony, or at least the appearance of it. The reward is cohesion; the price is intellectual honesty.
Third, the widespread willingness to ignore — or actively deny — the atrocities of October 7. The denial is often explained as bad faith or manipulation. I think something simpler is at work. The violence was too alien, too disturbing for contemporary Western sensibilities. It does not fit the moral script that pro-Palestinianism requires. And so it must be softened, relativised, or erased. This is not endorsement of terrorism; it is narrative necessity. Civic religions, like traditional ones, cannot tolerate facts that undermine their moral clarity.
Finally, there is the strangest alliance of all: pro-Palestinianism’s ability to unite groups with fundamentally incompatible worldviews. The most striking case is the enthusiastic embrace of the Palestinian cause by segments of the LGBT community. The contradiction is obvious. Israel is the most LGBT-tolerant society in the Middle East; Palestinian and broader Muslim societies are not. In Gaza, homosexuality can be a capital offense. Yet the alliance persists.
This is not confusion. It is strategy. In Western societies, LGBT rights remain culturally contested, particularly among immigrant communities. Embracing a shared moral cause costs little and builds goodwill where it is most needed — at home, not abroad. Pro-Palestinianism functions as a bridge, allowing incompatible groups to coexist under a single moral banner.
Put together, these puzzles point to a single conclusion. The West is experiencing a genuine spiritual crisis. The sensibilities of the West today are secular, Islam is not attractive for the same reason that Christianity was abandoned. Nihilism cannot integrate diverse populations. And they are diverse. Very large minorities among the young generations in major Western European cities, at times 20%-40%, are Muslim or of Muslim heritage. A new glue is required — one that is emotionally compelling, morally binary, and accessible across cultural divides. Pro-Palestinianism fits the role perfectly.
But civic religions have consequences. They demand sacrifices. Historically, societies stabilise themselves by offloading tension onto those least able to resist. Jews, numerically small and symbolically charged, have always been vulnerable in such moments. There is little reason to believe this time will be different.
I am not predicting gas chambers. At least, I do not insist on them. History rarely repeats itself so neatly. Disenfranchisement, exclusion, informal expulsion, and moral abandonment are more likely. They will be framed, as always, in the language of justice and peace.
The uncomfortable truth is this: pro-Palestinianism did not arise despite Western weakness, but because of it. And until Western societies confront the spiritual emptiness that made this new faith necessary, they will continue to demand offerings. Jews have seen this altar before.
Dr. Daniel Staetsky is an expert in Jewish demography and statistics. He is based in Cambridge, UK.
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Former UPenn President, Who Resigned in Disgrace Amid Antisemitism Crisis, Hired as Dean of Georgetown Law
Former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, on Dec. 5, 2023. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Georgetown University in Washington DC has hired Liz Magill, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) who resigned in disgrace amid backlash over her handling of antisemitism on campus, as the new dean and executive vice president of its law school.
“We are honored to welcome Liz Magill as the new dean of Georgetown Law,” interim Georgetown president Robert M. Groves said in a statement. “Liz is the right person to lead Georgetown law. She is a distinguished legal scholar and an accomplished administrator who brings a values-driven vision to Georgetown Law. We are excited to see her take the herm and join our vibrant community.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Magill’s resignation from Penn in December 2023 followed growing calls from donors, students, and university leaders, as well as US lawmakers, for her to step down after refusing to say during a US congressional hearing that calling for the genocide of Jews would not constitute a violation of school rules. Instead, she argued, the question of whether to punish a student for such a genocidal call would be a “context-dependent decision.”
The statement precipitated a scandal which led to Penn’s losing the philanthropic support of many its most generous donors and being denounced across the country for its handling of campus antisemitism.
Magill resigned from the office three days after the gaffe.
Then in August 2024, Harvard University hired Magill as a visiting fellow, and she also signed a three-year contract with the London School of Economics to teach as a visiting professor.
As president of Penn, Magill had several opportunities throughout her tenure at Penn to denounce hateful, even conspiratorial, rhetoric directed at both Israel and the Jewish community. However, Magill repeatedly declined to respond to the mounting incidents of antisemitism, especially anti-Zionism, on campus, according to an analysis by The Algemeiner of public statements she had issued since July 2022, when she assumed the presidency at Penn.
Only once did she comment on issues of race and identity, addressing in June 2023 the US Supreme Court’s restricting of race-conscious admissions programs through affirmative action. Up to that point, her public statements were limited to discussing climate change and marginal university business despite an anti-Zionist group, Penn Students Against the Occupation (PAO), regularly distributing literature blaming Jews for the world’s social problems and inviting to campus a speaker, Mohammed El-Kurd, who accused Israel of harvesting Palestinians’ organs.
Even the school’s hosting known antisemites at the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” which took place on campus from Sept. 22-24 in 2023, did not immediately move her to address antisemitism. When she did, she defended the event — whose itinerary listed speakers such as Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who previously said during an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them” — as an expression of free speech rather than cancel it and protect the university from extremists whose intellectual credentials were suspect and whose utterances violated principles of “diversity and inclusion” the school purported to uphold.
Georgetown’s decision to hire Magill comes at a time when the school is facing scrutiny over its foreign funding, which, according to experts, could impact how the school approaches antisemitic discrimination, anti-Zionist extremism, and classroom discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A new report released in January by the Middle East Forum, a prominent US-based think tank, describes how Qatar has allegedly exploited and manipulated Georgetown since 2005 by hooking the school on money that buys influence, promotes Islamism, and degrades the curricula of one of the most recognized names in American higher education.
“The unchecked funds provided by Qatar demonstrate how foreign countries can shape scholarship, faculty recruitment, and teaching in our universities to reflect their preferences,” the report says. “At Georgetown, courses and research show growing ideological drift toward post-colonial scholarship, anti-Western critiques, and anti-Israel advocacy, with some faculty engaged in political activism related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or anti-Western interventionism.”
Georgetown is hardly the only school to receive Qatari money. Indeed, Qatar is the single largest foreign source of funding to American colleges and universities, according to a newly launched public database from the US Department of Education that reveals the scope of overseas influence in US higher education.
The federal dashboard shows Qatar has provided $6.6 billion in gifts and contracts to US universities, more than any other foreign government or entity. Of the schools that received Qatari money, Cornell University topped the list with $2.3 billion, followed by Carnegie Mellon University ($1 billion), Texas A&M University ($992.8 million), and Georgetown ($971.1 million).
“Qatar has proved highly adept at compromising individuals and institutions with cold hard cash,” MEF Campus Watch director Winfield Myers said in a statement. “But with Georgetown, it found a recipient already eager to do Doha’s bidding to advance Islamist goals at home and abroad. It was a natural fit.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Women Expelled From Madrid Museum After Antisemitic Harassment, Sparking Outrage
Illustrative: Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces’ interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
Three elderly Jewish women, including a Holocaust survivor, were forced to leave a national museum in Madrid on Saturday after being verbally harassed for openly displaying Jewish symbols, with officials now facing mounting backlash for shielding the aggressors rather than the victims.
First reported by the Spanish news outlet Okdiario, the three women were visiting the National Museum Reina Sofía in central Madrid when other visitors spotted them wearing a Star of David necklace and carrying a small Israeli flag.
At that point, a group of people started attacking them verbally, shouting antisemitic insults and calling them “crazy child killers.”
Rather than intervening against the instigators, museum officials expelled the Israeli women, telling them to leave because “some visitors were disturbed that they are Jewish.”
A security guard also told the group to hide their Jewish symbols, insisting they could not be displayed inside the museum.
Even though one of them pointed out that Spanish law allows people to wear religious symbols and carry national flags in public institutions, they were still forcibly removed from the building despite not breaking any rules.
The incident has sparked public outrage, with museum personnel leaving the victims even more exposed and vulnerable, and no action taken against those who hurled insults and provoked the disruption.
As a state-affiliated cultural institution under Spain’s Culture Ministry, the Reina Sofía is internationally recognized as one of the country’s leading contemporary art museums.
In the past, the museum has also faced criticism for hosting anti-Israel demonstrations and presenting an exhibition titled “From the River to the Sea,” a popular slogan among pro-Palestinian activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly condemned the latest incident at the museum, calling it “deeply troubling and unacceptable,” and urged authorities to take immediate steps to protect Jewish visitors and ensure such harassment does not happen again.
“Instead of protecting those subjected to antisemitic abuse, the apparent decision to remove the victims raises serious concerns about discrimination within a public cultural institution,” EJC wrote in a post on X.
“Jewish identity must never become grounds for exclusion. Such conduct demands full clarification, clear accountability, and decisive action to ensure that antisemitism is confronted without ambiguity,” the statement read.
The expulsion of three elderly Israeli visitors, including a Holocaust survivor, from Madrid’s Reina Sofía museum after they were insulted as “child killers” and targeted for displaying Jewish symbols is deeply troubling and unacceptable.
The women were reportedly asked to leave… pic.twitter.com/KA9UixCYvz
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) February 16, 2026
The Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) group, a leading pro-Israel organization in Spain, also condemned the incident and announced it will pursue legal action against the Museum Reina Sofía, alleging discrimination and the promotion of hate from a public institution.
“The legal action will be directed both at the institution and its top official, the museum director, Manuel Segade,” ACOM wrote in a post on X, adding that the museum’s actions reflect “a persistent pattern of using political agendas, engaging in discrimination, and promoting narratives of hate against the State of Israel and the Jewish-Israeli community from a publicly funded institution.”
“A public institution should never be used as a platform for sectarian activism,” the statement continued.
ACOM emprenderá acciones legales contra el Museo Reina Sofía por discriminación y posible promoción de odio desde una institución pública
ACOM anuncia que emprenderá acciones legales contra el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía ante lo que considera una conducta…
— Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio – ACOM (@ACOM_es) February 16, 2026
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Spain has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Still, Spain stands out as one of the most extreme cases, with experts warning that antisemitic violence and anti-Zionist rhetoric have moved beyond a social phenomenon to, in many instances, being state-promoted and legitimized as a political tool.
In particular, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and several members of his left-wing party have come under mounting criticism from the country’s political and Jewish leaders, who accuse them of fueling antisemitic hostility.
Sánchez has repeatedly issued pro-Hamas statements, falsely accusing Israel of “genocide” and of violating international law in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“Protecting your country and your society is one thing, but bombing hospitals and killing innocent boys and girls with hunger is another thing entirely,” the Spanish leader said during a televised speech last year.
“That isn’t defending yourself – that’s not even attacking. It’s exterminating defenseless people. It’s breaking all the rules of humanitarian law,” he said.
Sánchez has also voiced solidarity with the “Palestinian people and their cause,” while praising anti-Israel demonstrations for championing what he called “just causes.”
Across the country, political leaders have accused Sánchez of exploiting the war in Gaza to deflect attention from his corruption scandals, recent electoral losses, and growing public dissatisfaction with his government.
According to the Spanish Observatory of Antisemitism, antisemitic incidents in Spain have surged by 567 percent from 2022 to 2024, with the trend expected to have continued into last year.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has launched a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
In September, the Spanish government passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.
Spanish officials also announced that they would bar entry to individuals involved in what they called a “genocide against Palestinians” and block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace.
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Olympic Store Worker Fired After Repeatedly Calling Out ‘Free Palestine’ to Israel Sports Fans
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 2-man Heat 2 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 16, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel and Menachem Chen of Israel react after their run. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
An employee at an official store for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy has been fired after repeatedly called out “Free Palestine” to a group of Israeli sports fans, Olympic organizers said on Sunday in a statement to Reuters.
Milano Cortina Games organizers said in a statement they have taken action to maintain “a neutral, respectful, and welcoming environment” at the Olympics. They said the incident took place inside the official shop at the Cortina Sliding Center, the venue that is hosting bobsled, luge, and skeleton during the Winter Games this year. Israel competed in skeleton last week, among other sports, and its bobsled team had their first Olympic competition on Monday.
“It is not appropriate for Games staff or contractors to express personal political views while carrying out their duties or to direct such remarks at visitors,” Olympic organizers added about the incident. “Those involved were reassured, and the individual concerned was removed from the shift.”
The store employee was identified as Ali Mohamed Hassan, according to StopAntisemitism. On Friday, the watchdog organization shared on Instagram a video of the confrontation and said it took place earlier that same day.
The clip shows a woman inside an official Olympic retail store filming Hassan as she says, “What were you saying? Say it again.” Hassan is then heard repeatedly saying, “Free Palestine.”
“This is the Olympics. Israel is allowed to compete just like any other country; It’s not controversial; it’s not rage bait,” the woman who is filming tells Hassan in the clip, as he repeatedly says “Free Palestine.”
“OK, good for you, you did it, you freed Palestine, good job,” the woman tells Hassan before leaving the store.
“Police were called and a harassment investigation has been started, with possible charges forthcoming,” StopAntisemitism claimed in the caption for the video.
Israel has 10 athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Olympics. On Monday, AJ Edelman and Menachem Chen finished in last place out of 26 sleds in the two-man bobsled race. Edelman will be the pilot of his bobsled team when they compete in the four-man event later this week.